Heat and sand are two of the challenges that the ten Formula One teams will have to fact this weekend as they take part in the third round of the 2016 Formula One championship season, the Bahrain Grand Prix.

For Renault, the R.E.17 power unit has proved reliable in the first two rounds of the season and there is no reason to think it won't be in Bahrain as Renault's Engine Technical Director Rémi Taffin explains…

What's the power unit feedback after the first two races?
It's a positive start to the season. Our power units have proved reliable in the first two Grands Prix of the season and have delivered increased performance over where we were last year. This new unit has great scope and we will see later in the season how to introduce performance upgrades once reliability is fully under control. An example: we did see issues related to the MGU-K in preseason testing for which we took the decision to revert to an earlier generation unit. This solution has proved effective so far and we will only use the newer specification unit once we're happy it can deliver reliably.

What are the challenges of the Bahrain International Circuit?
The two particular challenges are the heat and the sand. It's one of the hottest circuits we visit all year and this will test the power unit itself as well as the installation and cooling systems. Even though the race takes place later in the day than when we first started coming here, we do run daytime practice and there can be a load of heat radiated from the track surface. The other issue is the sand. It can be quite windy here and the sand from the surrounding desert means our air filtration systems leading into the engine have to really do their job.

Performance-wise, what's possible in the third Grand Prix of the season?
The first two races have definitely shown that we car challenging for points. Nico's P7 qualifying performance in Shanghai, which is quite a power-hungry track with its very long straight, shows we should be in the fight no matter what the location. We have run reliably on the power unit side at the last two races and we will always do what's needed to achieve this target for both cars. Hopefully Bahrain will be our first points of 2017.